Anutra Local Anesthetic Delivery System

Buffering increases patient comfort while reducing chair time

Larissa Bishop, DDS

Growing up in Michigan, I had my heart set on going to medical school. Initially,  dentistry never crossed my mind. But that changed after I witnessed implants being delivered to a patient who had been born with hypodontia associated with ectodermal dysplasia. Once I saw her smile, I knew that dentistry was where I wanted to be. It had never occurred to me that someone's teeth and smile are such a big part of who they are.

As a member of Spear Education and an avid lifelong learner, I am constantly looking for best practices that will increase our production and the comfort of our patients. Several years ago, I heard a lecture on buffering local anesthetic and the profound anesthesia that can be obtained. I talked about buffering with my local distribution representative and did extensive personal research. That is when I read an article about the Anutra Local Anesthetic Delivery System and the benefits offered by a single delivery system. After researching the product, I realized the price was higher than the traditional anesthetic I had been using, but I was intrigued by the science behind buffering and wanted to see Anutra in person. Once I saw what Anutra could do on the first couple of patients, my concerns about the higher cost were eliminated. It is now the primary anesthetic that I use for patient care.

The benefits of Anutra that I see in my practice are huge. Following administration, my pediatric patients become almost instantly and profoundly numb and rarely ever feel themselves getting numb. In addition to using it on our scheduled patients, I also use it for emergency patients, and it helps me stay on schedule. My patients are consistently getting profoundly numb within 60 to 75 seconds, and it requires less volume. The time savings, reliability, and increased comfort have changed how we practice quite a bit. Even when I used articaine, my patients could still feel the infiltrations. With buffered lidocaine, the anesthetic effect is more profound and comfortable.

Anutra has also increased my profits. Since we've been using it regularly, we've decreased our standard appointment time by 10 minutes, which has allowed us to schedule up to another hour and 20 minutes of production each day per doctor. The return on investment is there. It is definitely slightly more expensive than traditional anesthetic, but you can make that money back and more with the increase in production.